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kpete's JournalMatt Taibbi: The NYPD's 'Work Stoppage' Is Surreal
The NYPD's 'Work Stoppage' Is Surreal
In an alternate universe, the New York Police might have just solved the national community-policing controversy.
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The thing is, there are really two things going on here. One is an ongoing bitter argument about race and blame that won't be resolved in this country anytime soon, if ever. Dig a millimeter under the surface of the Garner case, Ferguson, the Liu-Ramos murders, and you'll find vicious race-soaked debates about who's to blame for urban poverty, black crime, police violence, immigration, overloaded prisons and a dozen other nightmare issues.
But the other thing is a highly specific debate over a very resolvable controversy not about police as people, but about how police are deployed. Most people, and police most of all, agree that the best use of police officers is police work. They shouldn't be collecting backdoor taxes because politicians are too cowardly to raise them, and they shouldn't be pre-emptively busting people in poor neighborhoods because voters don't have the patience to figure out some other way to deal with our dying cities.
This police protest, ironically, could have shined a light on all of that. Instead, it's just more fodder for our ongoing hate-a-thon. Happy New Year, America.
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Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-nypds-work-stoppage-is-surreal-20141231#ixzz3NWPwEeiH
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http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-nypds-work-stoppage-is-surreal-20141231?page=2
Kenny Knight, longtime adviser to KKK Leader David Duke gave $1,000 to Republican Steve Scalise
White Hate Leader Donated to Scalise
Kenny Knight, the longtime adviser to former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, gave $1,000 to Republican Steve Scalise in 2008. That was six years after Scalise gave a speech at a white nationalist conference associated with neo-Nazis. Scalise, the incoming House majority whip, has since said in a statement: “One of the many groups that I spoke to regarding this critical legislation was a group whose views I wholeheartedly condemn. It was a mistake I regret.” On Tuesday, Speaker John Boehner declared that he has “full confidence” in Scalise. In an interview with The Daily Beast, Knight said, “Poor Steve Scalise is getting a bad rap. I don’t think Steve Scalise would come anywhere near a white hate group.”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2014/12/31/white-hate-leader-donated-to-scalise.html
FBI Has Neat Way To Get Around FISA Court Rejection: Just Issue Nat'l Security Letter INSTEAD
When The FISA Court Rejects A Surveillance Request, The FBI Just Issues A National Security Letter Instead
from the oversight! dept
We've talked quite a bit about National Security Letters (NSLs) and how the FBI/DOJ regularly abused them to get just about any information the government wanted with no oversight. As a form of an administrative subpoena -- with a built in gag-order -- NSLs are a great tool for the government to abuse the 4th Amendment. Recipients can't talk about them, and no court has to review/approve them. Yet they certainly look scary to most recipients who don't dare fight an NSL. That's part of the reason why at least one court found them unconstitutional.
At the same time, we've also been talking plenty about Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, which allows the DOJ/FBI (often working for the NSA) to go to the FISA Court and get rubberstamped court orders demanding certain "business records." As Ed Snowden revealed, these records requests can be as broad as basically "all details on all calls." But, since the FISA Court reviewed it, people insist it's legal. And, of course, the FISA Court has the reputation as a rubberstamp for a reason -- it almost never turns down a request.
However, in the rare instances where it does, apparently, the DOJ doesn't really care, knowing that it can just issue an NSL instead and get the same information. At least that appears to be what the DOJ quietly admitted to doing in a now declassified Inspector General's report from 2008. EFF lawyer Nate Cardozo was going through and spotted this troubling bit:
If you can't read it, it says:
In other words, the FBI had a neat way to get around a rare FISA Court rejection: just issue an NSL and ignore the First Amendment concerns.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141224/14510929524/when-fisa-court-rejects-surveillance-request-fbi-just-issues-national-security-letter-instead.shtml
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"You don’t go to a James Brown concert and not know it’s James Brown.”
* AND THE QUOTE OF THE DAY, SCALISE-DIDN’T-KNOW-NOTHING EDITION: It comes courtesy of Corey Otis, a member of the white supremacist European-American Unity and Rights Organization, which Rep. Scalise spoke to while unaware (he claims) of what it stood for:
“Everybody there knew EURO was putting it on, and David Duke was the national president of EURO. You don’t go to a James Brown concert and not know it’s James Brown.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/31/us/politics/scalises-speech-to-white-supremacist-group-clouds-republicans-plans.html
There but for fortune, go you or I.....
Show me a prison, show me a jail
Show me a prisoner whose face has grown pale
And I'll show you a young man
With so many reasons why
There but for fortune, go you or I
Show me an alley, show me a train
Show me the hobo who sleeps out in the rain
And I'll show you a young man
With so many reasons why
There but for fortune, go you or I
Show me the whiskey stains on the floor
Show me a drunkard as he stumbles out the door
And I'll show you a young man
With so many reasons why
There but for fortune, go you or I
Show me a country where the bombs had to fall
Show me the ruins of buildings so tall
And I'll show you a young man
With so many reasons why
There but for fortune, go you or I
You or I
from here:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/31/1354865/-Show-me-the-hobo-who-sleeps-out-in-the-rain#
SPOTTED: Half-Male, Half-Female Bird
You don't have to be an ornithologist to know that red northern cardinals are male and brownish-gray ones are female.
But what about a Cardinalis cardinalis that sports red feathers on one side of its body and brownish-gray feathers on the other? Why, that cardinal is half-male and half-female, of course--and just such a rare bird has been observed in northwestern Illinois.
An example of a phenomenon biologists call bilateral gynandromorphism, the bird was observed for more than 40 days between Dec. 2008 and March 2010--and it certainly caught the attention of the scientists who spotted it.
"It was amazing when the bird was viewed from one side it appeared as a normal male and from the opposite side it appeared as a normal female," Dr. Brian D. Peer, a professor of biology at Western Illinois University in Macomb and one of the scientists, told The Huffington Post in an email. "It wasn't until you could see both halves of the bird did you realize it was a truly unique individual."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/30/half-male-half-female-bird-cardinal-plumage_n_6392336.html
NYT to NYPD: 1. Don’t violate the Constitution. 2. Don’t kill unarmed people. 3. Do your jobs.
http://nypost.com/2014/12/29/arrests-plummet-following-execution-of-two-cops/
When New York City Police Walk Off the Job
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The list of grievances adds up to very little, unless you look at it through the magnifying lens of resentment fomented by union bosses and right-wing commentators. The falling murder rate, the increased resources for the department, the end of quota-based policing, which the police union despised, the mayor’s commitment to “broken-windows” policing — none of that matters, because many cops have latched on to the narrative that they are hated, with the mayor orchestrating the hate.
It’s a false narrative. Mr. de Blasio was elected by a wide margin on a promise to reform the policing excesses that were found unconstitutional by a federal court. He hired a proven reformer, Mr. Bratton, who had achieved with the Los Angeles Police Department what needs doing in New York. The furor that has gripped the city since the Garner killing has been a complicated mess. But what New Yorkers expect of the Police Department is simple:
1. Don’t violate the Constitution.
2. Don’t kill unarmed people.
To that we can add:
3. Do your jobs. The police are sworn public servants, and refusing to work violates their oath to serve and protect. Mr. Bratton should hold his commanders and supervisors responsible, and turn this insubordination around.
MORE:
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/12/31/opinion/when-new-york-city-police-walk-off-the-job.html?ref=opinion&_r=2&referrer=
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